Shades of Gray
by whowhatsitwhich
Summary: "Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them." ― Leo Tolstoy Written for the USS Caryl's Emotion fanfiction/fanart challenge.


_"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them." ― Leo Tolstoy_

Denial...

This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. Not her. Not Sophia. The one good and pure thing she'd done after surviving fifteen years in hell. She wasn't gone. She couldn't be gone. This was a mistake, a cruel joke, a misunderstanding. She wasn't gone, just hiding and afraid, waiting for a friendly face to bring her home She wasn't gone.

Anger...  
"She's only twelve," she screamed hoarsely. Her voice cracked as a sob tore her throat in half. "She can't be out there alone." Arms wrapped around her, trying to be supportive but they suffocated her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see anything but the anguished blue eyes of the man standing before her. The man who didn't think twice before he raced after her daughter and the two monsters chasing her. The man who'd come back alone, looked around first in alarmed inquiry and then in dawning horror. "You left her," the bereft mother shrieked again, slapping aside the hands trying to restrain her. She bolted forward, arm swinging reflexively, putting everything she had in the blow. His head canted back, absorbing the slap as his cheek went from stark white to flaming red. "You left her." Sobbing, she fell to her knees as anger faded, leaving a blank nothingness in its place.

Bargaining...

"I know it was wrong to pray for his death," she whispered, eyes never straying from His blessed face. Her fingers found the cross hanging from a thin gold chain around her neck and wrapped it in a trembling fist. "If you want to blame someone, blame me. She's innocent. She has her whole life in front of her. God, please. If someone has to pay, let it be me. Not my baby. Not her. Please, let it be me."

Depression...

She tried to put a brave face on for him. He was trying so damned hard and she didn't have it in her to tell him that she was giving up. Too much time had passed and there was no reason to think that today would be any better. The more days that came and went, the less chance there was that Sophia would be coming home. She put those thoughts aside for him, smiled when he led her to the roses, his soft voice and pleading eyes practically begging her to just give him time. Just a little more time. So she lied. She told him she could see the beautiful dream he so desperately wanted to be real. She gave him a reason to go on when she had nothing left to hold on to.

Acceptance...

Her darling girl. Her love. Her baby. It was hard to connect those treasured memories with the bare, beaten earth before her. She sat in the RV, blank and desolate while they put Sophia in the ground. She pushed them away, even him, when they tried to get her to say good-bye. _My Sophia was alone in the woods. She didn't go hungry. She didn't cry herself to sleep. Sophia died a long time ago. _Those words were bitter ashes in her mouth. She didn't want to believe, hadn't wanted to accept that all the dreaming and hoping and praying was useless. She didn't want to think that her little girl might have spent her last moments cold and afraid. It was easier, kinder, more humane to think she'd just slipped away. Here and then gone. A will o the wisp following the spring. That's what got her through the first minutes and then hours and then days after Sophia shambled out of the barn, a facsimile of the beautiful daughter she'd sheltered from the world. This morning...something was different. She got up, washed her face, and made her way across the yard where three crosses stood solemnly at attention. She knelt in the dust, let her fingers trail over roughly hewn wood and velvet petals as a lone tear slid down her cheek. "This isn't goodbye," she murmured. "I love you like the ocean, baby girl. That means we'll always be together." She pulled the chain over her head and draped it lovingly on the marker. As she climbed to her feet, the sun broke through the clouds casting everything in honey hued gold. Carol turned her face to the warmth and smiled freely for the first time. Heart just a bit lighter, she made her way slowly back to camp.

Yearning...

It started out slowly, creeping up on her when she least expected. Making sure he ate before leaving on a run or going hunting. Setting aside one of the good blankets so he'd be warm when he came off the midnight watch he insisted on taking every night. Seeking him out when they piled into the cars in their ceaseless searching for some place to call home. At first, she thought it was gratitude for the way he watched over her when Sophia went missing and after. Then she chided herself for the school girl flush that reddened her cheeks when he looked her way. Finally, she gave in and called it what it was. Want. Need. Longing. Yearning. He made her feel again. He made her come to life...shivering, shaking, feverish life. She tried to tamp it down, hold it back...unwilling to put more on him that he could take. He'd become one of the reasons she hung on. The group was her family now and she loved each and every one of them but he was her light in a dark and dreary world. Something good and safe and real. He made her want to be more...but for her sake and not for him. And that made her want him even more.

Love...

A velvet sky and dew rimed grass were the only witnesses when it happened. Their family had been scattered to the winds. Chance brought them back together: a left turn, a flat tire, a fleeting glimpse. She remembered seeing him for the first time after those soul rending days spent alone and then with Tyreese and the kids. The tracks were a means to an end, an easy way to eat up the miles without the risk of being caught out in the open. They squared off, weighing and measuring the threat until he lifted a hand to shade his eyes and she stepped into the light after noting the crossbow slung over his shoulder. They stood unmoving, disbelieving until he broke the silence. "Carol?"

Two syllables that held the weight of the world. She took one step and then two and then she was running. Sprinting. Tearing toward him in a madcap dash, uncaring who might see or what they would say. The sob ripped from her throat as they collided bore only a passing resemblance to his name but neither cared. He pulled her in, chest heaving and breath coming short, rough fingers cupping her cheeks as he shook his head. He couldn't believe she was there, alive and well, right in front of him. The tears welling in her fathomless blue eyes gleamed in the waning sun. He thumbed them away, and then ran his fingers over every inch of her upturned face.

Explanations and excuses came later as did greetings and goodbyes. It wasn't storybook or fairy tale. There was no room for fanciful notions anymore. That night as the fire burned low and the others found what rest they could, he led her away into the velvet dark.

"I was coming for you," he stated without preamble. "Wouldn't have stopped until you were back where you belong."

She smiled up at him tremulously. "I hoped you would know I had my reasons and would understand why things went the way they did."

His eyes closed as he reached for her hand and twined their fingers together. "Don't go off again. You hear me. You're too...I can't..." He let out a shuddering breath. "Don't leave me again."

She sidled closer so that her arms wound around his waist and tucked her head into the crook of his neck. "I won't," she vowed quietly, fiercely. "I promise."


End file.
